Let me just do a reality check.
I'm here, in Bangkok, doing a great study course on the one thing I've found that I have the passion for - not everybody has the chance to do so, and I'm grateful for that.
So, why am I feeling slightly depressed at the fact that I'm into the second term of my course, and yet something about what I've been learning isn't impressing me much and blowing my socks away! I feel drained just doing repetitive recipes, over and over again!
Namely, mousse.
I ain't feeling it at all, and feels slightly upset that my syllabus has been changed, and I'm not doing much chocolate works as I had expected and anticipated. 9 more practicals left to go, and I'm really hoping that more chocolate works can be involved. (Cross fingers).
Meanwhile, on a side note, I can't take any more of passion fruit and raspberry puree of any sort. Otherwise, I'm gonna blow my mind off. BLAH!
Alright, back to school!
For Wednesday, it was a simple demo & practical class consisting of only two recipes; Passionata & Exotic.
Exotic isn't an actual name for this particular cake.
It is just a reference to an entremet made with tropical fruits. My Thai translator in school was joking that the French found fruits like mango, papaya and banana as exotic - which made the class burst out in fits of laughter.
That is exactly what's in this entremet - joconde biscuit sponge with a coconut dacquoise base, mango & pineapple marmalade insert topped with pabana mousse and finally, decorated with tropical fruits.
Yes, I had that question on my mind too when I first saw the recipe stating "225g pabana puree".
I was thinking, what sort of fruit is that, pabana?? And in true Singaporean fashion, I was like "Siao liao, where on earth am I going to get Pabana puree...Cold Storage? Oh no, maybe Jason's, since they seemed to have more imported items.".
Then, it dawned me that this may not even be a fruit. It could be a mixture of different types of fruits; maybe a little papaya, banana and pineapple? It turned out I was right. HAHA!
So there you go, it's a beautiful sponge cake with 3 different flavored mousse cake with a pineapple & mango filing on the inside. truth to be told, the banana taste wasn't very strong, I wished it was, but the combination of coconut dacquoise over rides the taste of the other fruits present.
Exotic? Yes. Delicious? Not quite. But I'm biased. I don't enjoy coconut that much in my cakes.
Next, we have the Passionata - another cake on the exam list. In fact, for the next few subsequent practicals, we're actually baking the list of chosen cakes for the exam.
Passionata a.k.a raspberry & passion fruit cream cake, is a entremet that involved using cigerette batter, baking with the Jonconde Biscuit sponge, have a coconut dacquoise base sprinkled with icing sugar and grated coconut middle insert, filled with passion fruit cream (something like lemon curd cream) and raspberry mousse, before being glazed with the most shiniest raspberry glaze I have ever seen in my entire course.
Pleased to present to you, my Passionata!
First off, it was a busy practical.
It was our first time trying out one method to decorate a plain sponge cake, using colours from making cigerette batter - which consists of butter, icing sugar, egg whites and flour as well as any colouring you would want to add in.
Here, we have only red and yellow food colouring.
We divide the batter amount into two, add in the colours and basically spread the two colours around the baking silipat to create a tie-dye look. After which we made the biscuit sponge and let it collapse as much as we could (by over mixing the ingredients together) in order to reach a nice, elastic texture which we can then manipulate during the assembly stage to fit it around the entremet ring.
I mix the batter energetically because usually we have to be careful not to over mix the mixture, otherwise the sponge will not be light and airy, but rather heavy and dense. I fold in the batter this time with a vengeance. WAHAHA!
The end result of the baked sponge is as above - pretty pink & yellow hues colored sponge.
Then, Mew and myself prepared the passion fruit cream and raspberry mousse and went about assembling the entremet, before glazing.
Wouldn't you have a look at that super reflective glaze? It's a result of having white fondant, glucose and gelatin leaves to help set the glaze. Usually we use neutral glaze or apricot glaze, which has pectin and pectin helps to set the glaze. By adding gelatin leaves, the glaze will set, but it does not set immediately.
Which is why, my glaze was a little bit of a disaster; you'll see why later.
Chef was pretty happy with my work, but he also reminded me to chemiser properly, which is an action to smear the mousse on the sides of the ring to prevent holes like these in my mousse. I actually did chemiser, but perhaps a little more would do a even better job. =)
*WARNING* The following photos are rated M18 due to the "nudity" content.
I took my cake back home as usual, and then lo & behold... my passionata is stripped off of its glorious red passionate glaze - apparently, my glaze didn't set well enough. I asked my other classmates, and found out that they actually added more gelatin than required so that their glaze sets faster. What a smart move, I'll do the same if I get this cake during exam.
So yeah. I had no choice but to continue with a early morning photo shoot of my nude slice of cake.
Alright, put the glaze 'outfit malfunction' accident aside! Check out the layers instead!
The two layers in between is the Coconut dacquoise and the yellow layer is the passion fruit cream. Notice how level, that the raspberry mousse is? That's because during assembly, the components of passion cream along with the layers of dacquoise cannot be higher than the height of the side sponge, which is about 3cm.
Chef has said in advance that they will check the layers during the exam and grade accordingly. So its best if we managed to get the layers layered correctly.
Here, we have a shoot of the rear view of my nude model; she is completely clothed in a nice flexible sponge of pink and yellow hues, which serves to compliment her pinkish natural blush of raspberry mousse.
Minimalist décor just as how Chef Willy would love it - my model's beauty is further accentuated by a chocolate square and a single raspberry.
And...that's a wrap, people!
If you want to make yourself a nice sponge cake sandwich with or topped with a nice raspberry mousse, be sure to check out the recipe below, which is good for a 18cm entremet!
Till next time!
***
RASPBERRY MOUSSE (Makes single 18cm entremet ring sized layer/ 330g net)
INGREDIENTS
175 g raspberry puree
30 g sugar
6 ml lemon juice
6 g gelatin leaves (soak in cold water to soften or follow the instructions on packet)
150 ml cream, whipped (prepare soft peak W/C in advance)
STEPS
1. In saucepan, add ⅔ of puree together with sugar and lemon juice. Warm till above 60℃, before adding in soften gelatin and sift mixture back into ⅓ puree bowl. Whisk to combine and let cool, use puree only at 18℃.
2. Use puree only at 18℃. If temperature is not met, use an ice bath. Whisk ⅓ of the whipped cream into the puree bowl and whisk together fast to combine. Add second ⅓ of whipped cream into puree bowl and whisk gently this time. Then pour puree mixture back into whipped cream bowl and fold in till mousse is smooth and has even color.
3. Pour on entremet ring/cake and chill till the mousse is set.
*If lumps is present during the folding in stage, use whisk to break the lumps, but not too much, otherwise, the volume of the mousse will collapse.
***
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